


Witchcraft

by myth_taken



Series: Denial 101 [4]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 04:30:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8272894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myth_taken/pseuds/myth_taken
Summary: Fred settles into Sunnydale, learning her first spell and making her first friends.





	

**Author's Note:**

> fred is my child and i love her

“Okay, so.” Fred sat cross-legged on the bed, pencil behind her ear, notebook in hand. “What do we do first?”

Tara laughed, sitting down with Willow on the edge of the bed. “You don’t need the notebook.”

Fred shook her head. “I need to record everything I do. It’s for the science part of this.”

Willow and Tara looked at each other and shrugged. 

“Pencils first?” Willow asked.

Tara nodded.

Fred took the pencil from behind her ear. “What?”

“You’re going to make it float,” Tara said. “There’s a trick to it. You have to stay completely calm.”

“But then how will I take notes?” Fred asked.

“You can take notes after,” Tara told her. “It’s generally pretty hard to take notes  _ while _ you’re doing magic.”

Fred nodded and stared at the pencil, scrunching her face in concentration.

“Relaxing helps,” Willow prodded.

Fred took a few deep breaths. “Okay. I can do this.”

Willow and Tara both laughed.

“You’re taking this too seriously,” Tara said. “It’s like an extension of yourself.”

Fred nodded. 

“Breathe with me,” Tara instructed. She took a slow, deep breath through her nose, then let it out through her mouth. Fred joined her.

“Now let your attention drift to the pencil,” Tara said. “Imagine it rising.”

Fred closed her eyes, still breathing slowly with Tara. She imagined the particles underneath the pencil pushing it up, up, up, into the air. The world was calm. When she opened her eyes, she saw the pencil floating gently above her, and Willow and Tara both sitting across from her and smiling.

“I did it, y’all!” Fred exclaimed, watching the pencil.

“Can you make it rotate?”

Fred imagined the air swirling around the pencil, pushing it gently around its center, and the ends of the pencil drifted clockwise. She looked across at Willow and Tara, who were still grinning at her.

“That’s really good,” Willow said.

Fred let the pencil fall and immediately picked it up and began scribbling in her notebook.

“What are you writing about?” Willow asked.

“How it’s possible to mentally excite particles in such a way that they push the pencil around,” Fred said. “I’m not sure how it works, but I sure do like it.”

“It’s something to do with the connection between this plane and the metaphysical,” Willow said. “We don’t touch anything, but we use the spiritual world to touch things for us.”

“It’s like our souls move the pencil, but our bodies don’t have to help.”

Fred nodded. “So it’s like Plato?”

“You’ve read Plato?” Tara asked.

“I thought you were more into the physics stuff,” Willow added.

“Yeah, I took a philosophy class. It all ties together really nicely, actually,” Fred said. “And sometimes I like to think about how Aristotle would react if we told him what an electron was.”

“You lost me,” Tara said.

“Me, too,” Willow admitted.

Fred grinned. “That’s okay. I don’t know much about the things you two study. I mean, if you ask me a question about Latin, I don’t answer it right.”

“The Latin comes with the spellcasting,” Tara said. “A little, anyway. Willow’s the one who actually took the classes.”

“It’s very interesting,” Willow said. “It makes lots of stuff easier. Like spells, and Italian, and logic stuff.”

Just then, there was a huge clatter from downstairs. Fred could hear shouting and stomping, and she shrank back. She hadn’t met the Potentials yet; they had been out when she’d arrived the night before, and she hadn’t left Willow’s and Tara’s room that day. It helped that she had slept for a long time, curled up in a pile of blankets on the floor.

“I guess Buffy’s home,” Willow said.

“Buffy and her army,” Tara joked.

“Do you want to go meet them, Fred?” Willow asked.

Fred hesitated. She didn’t, but she also knew she’d have to sleep in a room with all of them eventually. She didn’t get special treatment just because she was a witch and not a Slayer. “I guess I have to, don’t I?”

“You don’t have to,” Tara assured her.

“Well, someday I’ll have to, or they’ll all be mighty confused about what I’m doing in this house.” Fred scooted over to the edge of the bed and stood up.

Tara and Willow both stood up as well.

“We’ll introduce you,” Willow said. “It’s not so scary, once you get used to the sheer number of them.”

“I’m not too good with lots of people,” Fred said. “Where I lived before, lots of others usually meant I was gonna get caught.”

“The Potentials won’t catch you,” Tara said. “It’s okay.”

Fred nodded. “I have to go meet them,” she said.

Willow and Tara led her out of their room and down the stairs, where the Potentials had congregated in the living room. When Willow and Tara entered, most of them looked up, and when Fred entered, they all looked at each other.

“New Potential?” one asked.

“No, actually,” Willow said, “we brought Fred from L. A. to learn witchcraft.”

Fred waved. “Hi, y’all. I’m Fred.”

She didn’t get much of a response. Everyone looked at each other, and a few of them waved back.

Fred looked at Willow and Tara. “Is this what it’s usually like?”

“I think they’ve gotten too used to new people,” Willow answered.

“You guys,” Tara said, “Fred’s really cool. She’s trying to reconcile witchcraft with modern physics.”

Fred shrugged and blushed. “I just thought, you know, maybe if we knew what happened with particles when we do magic, we might be able to figure out how to do cooler magic. I don’t know much magic yet, though.”

A Potential stood up. “Are you from the south?” she asked. The cadence of her voice perfectly matched Fred’s. “Because, you know, I’m from Georgia.” 

Fred smiled. “I’m a Texas girl myself.” 

The Potential stuck out her hand. “Hi, Fred. I’m Vi. Now what’s this about physics?”

Fred laughed. “It might not make a lot of sense if you haven’t studied the properties of subatomic particles in great detail.”

“That’s okay,” Vi said. “I think I could use a distraction from the blood and gore.”

“Yeah, it does look a little grim around here.” Fred shrugged. “I guess I’ll get used to it. It’s not like L. A. is much better. Just more populated.”

“We’re plenty populated,” Vi answered. “Just with demons.”

The instant the Potentials saw Vi and Fred hitting it off, they all seemed more comfortable. They all went back to what they had been doing, and after a while, a few of them approached Fred and started asking her questions about herself. She answered, trying her best to respond in kind, or at least get everyone’s name, and by the end of the day, she had a flock of friends among the Potentials.

That evening, she sat with Willow and Tara on their bed again. 

“I think they like me,” she said. “I’m really happy. I’ve never had so many people like me. Usually they just tell me to be quiet. Sometimes they tell me to be quiet, cow.”

Tara smiled. “That’s how it feels to be with the Scoobies. You’ve never had a friend in your life, and all of a sudden, you have four or five or ten, if you’re lucky.”

“I think Angel liked me,” Fred said, “and Cordelia, once I stopped being so crazy. But I think these people might even like me if they knew I was crazy.”

“What happened to you, Fred?” Willow asked.

Fred shook her head. “Oh, no, I can’t talk about that. I can’t do that. I had a bad five years. That’s all you need to know. They called me cow, and they gave me a collar, and that’s all you need to know.”

She closed her eyes, trying to dispel images of her captivity, and opened them to see Tara leaning towards her, tentatively holding out her arms.

“Can I hug you?” Tara asked.

Fred nodded, still frowning. “Hugs are good. I like hugs.”

Soon she had two pairs of arms wrapped around her, and she finally felt safe.


End file.
